


The Name Game

by pocky_slash



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, M/M, Names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-18
Updated: 2010-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard running errands when your last name is 'Jones.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Name Game

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://solsticezero.livejournal.com/profile)[**solsticezero**](http://solsticezero.livejournal.com/) for the beta and helping with the ending. And to Pat Thai for the brain food.

Ianto grew up on an estate that had two other Jones families. One family had children much older than he was and the other was a newlywed couple with no children, but although he didn't know any of the other Joneses personally, he heard about them all the time.

"Bloody Barry Jones' collection notices _again!_ " his father would mutter as he paged through the day's mail. "If the bank is doing as shoddy a job of keeping us straight as the Royal Mail is, god help us!"

(It wasn't just bills, but notices and postcards and magazines, too. Ianto got his first dirty magazine by way of a package addressed to Andy Jones, waylaid into their mailbox and snatched up before his father got home. Good thing, too, because the last thing Andy needed was Ianto's father telling the other blokes at the pub that weedy Andy Jones was a poof.)

He always thought that escaping the estate, the concentration of Jones' in one place, would put those sort of mix-ups behind him, but then he ended up at Torchwood, working one floor below Ian Jones in the translation department, and he started to experience his father's ire. Ian's memos ended up in his in-tray, Ian's e-mails were directed to him, and more than once, someone struck up a conversation about alien dialects with him over lunch, only to discover they were chatting up the wrong Jones.

(A passing inconvenience from his years at Torchwood One that turned tragic after the disaster. For twelve long hours, his name was on the list of the dead and Ian's family sat in a hospital waiting room, waiting to see their son and brother. It was hard to tell who was more disappointed by the mistake--the Jones family, who had desperately wanted their Ian to be alive, or Ianto, who desperately wished he had died with the others.)

Torchwood Three had five employees. He was the only Jones. But he was far from the only Jones in the city and as the last lingering painful echos of his life in London faded from his mind, the petty frustrations of coming home with someone else's takeaway and someone else's dress shirts and someone else's vacation postcards began to drift back into his life.

So, really, it wasn't a surprise the first time the woman at the Thai restaurant said, "Name?" and he responded, unthinkingly, with, "Harkness."

It was practical. The food _was_ for both of them, after all, and he really hated having to turn around and go back to the restaurant when he, inevitably, neglected to check the contents of the bag before he left and ended up with the wrong food.

He didn't think twice about it. Slowly, he started using "Harkness" at the dry cleaners and while making dinner reservations. It wasn't a lie, not usually. Somewhere along the line, the _personal_ had taken precedence over _assistant_ and when Ianto was taking in dry cleaning or picking up dinner, it was rarely for him alone.

He couldn't do anything about getting Idris Jones' mail or messages on his home phone for some other Ianto Jones somewhere in Cardiff, but at least now he was mostly able to eat his dinner while it was still hot.

The problem was that he was a creature of habit, and when you really only frequent the same five restaurants, they start to know you. Or rather, they start to call you by the name you usually order food under. He probably wouldn't have thought it was a problem if he hadn't gone out to one of his usual places with Gwen on a night that Jack was busy.

They had just been seated with a cheery greeting from the waitress when Gwen frowned and said to him, "Ianto... I know you like to play things close to the chest, but you and Jack... you didn't get married when I wasn't looking, did you?"

She said it with the half-smile and forced laugh that she used when she was trying to act flippant to hide her overwhelming curiosity.

Ianto didn't notice that, though, because he was too busy sucking wine into his lungs.

"Careful, careful!" Gwen chastised, patting his shoulder as if that would help clear his airways. He wheezed at her and waved her away, his eyes watering at the burning in his throat.

"I take it from your reaction that you haven't gotten secretly hitched, then?" Gwen asked once he was breathing.

Ianto nodded fervently. "Why would you even ask that?" he asked, hoping Gwen would attribute the panicked pitch of his voice to residual soreness from inhaling wine.

"The waitress called you Mr. Harkness," Gwen said. "Our reservation was under 'Harkness.' It didn't come out of the clear blue sky."

Ianto wiped his mouth on his napkin and then dropped it back down to his lap. "Practicality," he said. "Do you know how many Joneses there are in this city? Do you know how many times I've taken the wrong suit home from the dry cleaners? Most the time I'm ordering for Jack, too, or making reservations for the both of us. It's just more efficient this way. It's not--Jack and I aren't--"

Gwen waved a hand at him dismissively.

"I know, I know," Gwen said. "You'd rather pull your fingernails out than admit you have any emotional attachment to Jack."

Ianto glared at her. "Yes. Thanks much, Gwen."

"I notice you're not denying it," Gwen said. Ianto responded by pointedly opening his menu and studying it as if he didn't eat there once a week and order takeaway more than that. "Does Jack know you do it?"

"Jack's usually with me," Ianto reminded her. "When I'm with Jack, it actually makes sense. It's his name. I may be the one placing the order, but he's the one eating, so what difference does it make? He probably thinks it's an extension of some butler/superhero roleplay."

He should have known better, because suddenly Gwen was staring at him with interest again and saying, "Roleplay?" and it was all he could do to change the subject to ravioli before he choked on more wine.

The conversation stuck with him, though. After twenty-five years of crossing paths with countless Joneses, using Harkness had been a nice reprieve. He hadn't thought about it as a marriage or as a name change or as a statement. Hell, when he first started the name switch, Jack hadn't even been his boyfriend. Now it was all he _could_ think about. All he could see were childish doodles on school notebooks with hearts and hyphens. He began to flinch whenever he said the name, whenever he used it himself, because now he wondered if that was what people thought. If people thought they were married. Him and Jack. Married. To each other.

It made him want to crawl into a hole somewhere in humiliation, to explain to the dry cleaner and the waitress at the Greek restaurant and the man who serviced the SUV and his car that it wasn't that he was married to Jack or even that he _wanted_ to be married to Jack, it was just bloody _difficult_ to run errands when you were a Jones.

He couldn't say that, though. Not only was it a) impractical and b) none of their business, but he had been using "Harkness" for so long that it would probably start to raise some eyebrows.

Because, yes, it seemed that everyone in the city _did_ think they were bloody married.

"Good to see you, Mr. Harkness," the cheerful girl who usually manned the cash register at the Italian restaurant said. Jack was searching his pockets for his mobile and absently flashed her his usual brilliant smile.

He was too occupied to notice that the girl had been talking to _Ianto_.

She led them to a table in the back, because Jack liked to see all the exits and generally be a nuisance however possible. And she knew that. Just like she knew that he wanted a cup of coffee and Jack wanted a glass of water and to bring two plates for olive oil with their bread basket because Ianto liked to mix vinegar and garlic in with his and Jack--of all people--thought that was disgusting. She knew all of these things because they were _regulars_ and that was the real reason he couldn't insist that he really wasn't a Harkness--because they were _regulars_ and word got around and people would talk.

Jack was already digging into the bread with gusto, a slice half-hanging out of his mouth as he chewed and read over the menu, as if he ever deviated from the same three entrees, and suddenly, Ianto couldn't stand it any more.

"We're not married!" he said quickly.

Jack lowered his menu slightly and stared at Ianto over the top of it, his mouth open mid-chew.

Ianto had never, in his life, been more mortified. If he had wanted to crawl into a hole before, now he was prepared to dig it himself, and then bury himself in it, and then never, ever come out again.

"I'm... pretty sure I knew that," Jack finally said. He finished chewing and swallowed, laying the menu on the table. "I mean, unless you count that time the Prixillians--"

"That was a fertility ritual, not a marriage ceremony," Ianto said firmly. Jack opened his mouth to protest, so Ianto quickly added, "And even if it is considered a marriage facsimile in some parts of some galaxies, it is not considered as such in the United Kingdom."

Jack closed his mouth, leaving them staring at each other across the small table, an awkward silence settling over them.

"Is there a reason," Jack asked slowly, "that you feel the need to remind me of that? I'm pretty sure I haven't slipped up and called you my husband."

"You haven't," Ianto said, glad that there was something more horrifying than having people think he was married to Jack--having _Jack_ think that he was married to Jack. "And it's not that--I mean, I'm not against the institution of marriage." He quickly added, "Not that I'm saying we _should_ get married or, really, technically, that we _can_ , because there are slight legal differences between--"

Jack held up his hand and Ianto's mouth snapped shut. And wasn't _that_ embarrassing. He wasn't sure how he felt about the way following Jack's commands seemed to be ingrained into his mind.

"We're not married," he assured Ianto. "And I haven't been carrying around a ring waiting for the perfect romantic moment to get down on one knee."

"Good," Ianto said. He resisted the urge to add, hastily, that it wasn't that he had anything against Jack or marrying Jack or being in a relationship with Jack or letting people know that he was in a relationship with Jack. He'd had enough word vomit for the night, thank you very much.

"Sometimes," he said, slowly, deliberately, picking his words with care and reigning himself in from babbling like a madman, "I use your name when I'm running errands. At the dry cleaners and the video store and whatnot." He shrugged. "I make reservations under your name."

"Yeah?" Jack asked. "So?" Apparently, his patience had run out. He was dipping another slice of bread in olive oil.

"It's not out of some pre-adolescent need to proclaim my lo--affection for you," he said, feeling his ears start to burn. "It's just sensible. There are a lot of Joneses in the world."

"Yeah," Jack said. "'Harkness' probably saves you from taking the wrong pizza home."

"Yes!" Ianto said. "Yes, yes, exactly."

Jack shrugged. "Makes sense," he said around another mouthful of bread. "What's the problem?"

"I--" Ianto frowned. "I'm not sure."

Jack shrugged again. "Then let's drop it and order dinner."

"Gladly," Ianto said, opening his menu and raising his coffee cup to his lips.

"Although, if you really wanted to be unique, 'Harkness-Jones' has a nice ring to it," Jack said. "It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure you get some kind of tax break when you're married. Save you some money. That's _sensible_ , isn't it?"

Ianto didn't answer. It was hard to speak after inhaling a lungful of coffee. He managed a weak glare as he coughed and sputtered, but Jack cheerfully ignored it. It was hard to notice anything over the sound of his own laughter, anyway.

The next time Ianto placed a dinner reservation, he didn't hesitate in his use of "Harkness." It could, he realized, always be worse.


End file.
